The Meaning of You
by FairDrea
Summary: Strenght, Tenacity, Class, Vibrance, Purity, Future....all words they use to describe her. Our hero's, their father, and Casey Jones take a good, hard look at the woman who inspires them to be heros. April Drabbles.
1. Raphael

A/N: I blame Mikell, Diva Danni and Polaris for this one. Thanks a lot ladies. Stupid drabbles getting in my head. I don't even know what drabble means!! Lol. Well, here's my attempt at a few. Each of our guys, including Splinter and Casey, are giving the task of using one word that best embodies April. What they choose to do with it is up to them. First up…Raphael!

Disclaimer: I own nothing of TMNT and make no profit from the writing of this…drabble.

Strength

There's more to her than one word could ever tell ya. More to her than a sense of being, a sense of purpose. She's too complicated to be narrowed down in some simple word. Heck, even a simple sentence. She's a life force to be reckoned with and has a smile that would knock you flat on your shell if you let it, a personality that has the potential to blind. She's fierce and protective, yet yielding and compassionate – all in one feisty, red-headed package.

If I had to pin it down to one word…one perfect word that would define her and what she means to me – it would be strength. Yeah, there ain't no better word than that to fully explain April O'Neal.

I can remember the night I first saw her. Not the night I first met her – the night I first saw her. She stood there, confident…cocky even…under the pale orange glow of the street lamp. I could read fear in every one of her actions from the anxious shift of her worn sneakers over the uneven pavement to the way her hand slipped around the cloth handle of her purse, grippin' the fabric. Every breath she took bounced off the walls of that alley – uneven, staggering. I could hear it above the mocking voices of those punks around her. But the way she gripped that purse and the determination that lit her eyes, unmistakable even in darkness….

That purse - she intended to use it. She intended to fight.

Instantly…I knew her. I could relate to what I saw in those eyes. I felt the connection that yanked at me, forcing me out of hiding and past my brothers to defend her. I knew her.

Sometimes….sometimes I forget why we fight. I forget why I care what one representative of the scum of the earth club does to another. I forget why we try to stop them, why we try to make things better when no one really tries to make things better for us. Then I think about her. I think about her and how she fought for the likes of me when she didn't even have to. By then she knew me. She knew my family, but not well. She was an acquaintance.

See, my brothers…they told me about that night. That night I don't like to remember…when the Foot used me for their personal batterin' ram into her apartment after they'd roughed me up enough to knock me out. I can remember glass shatterin' around me, scrapin' my skin and bitin' like teeth. That's about it though. My brothers filled me in on those parts I missed. How she watched over me and worried, how she kept them all from fallin' apart. How she wouldn't let me die. I got this image of her, standin' over me with a pipe in her hand, those green eyes blazin' like they did the night in that alley.

She hardly knew me. She hardly knew anythin' about me at all. But she wanted me to live. She fought for my life. Probably in more ways than I ever fought for hers.

My brothers like to think that when those moments happen, those moments where I stop carin' and forget about why we fight for these people we don't even know….they like to think they have somethin' to do with pulling me back. Leo…Leo likes to think he plays a significant role in remindin' me of where my place is in this world and why I fight to keep it a good place. They don't know. They don't understand.

I fight for her. I fight because of her. She took a chance and she cared. She cared with everythin' she had in her when she didn't even have to. If she can do that for me…for a mutant she knew next to nothin' about when she was sittin' beside that tub and makin' sure I was okay….then I can at least try to make sure that kind of good keeps on existin'. If not for this world that's fallin' apart faster than we can put it back together, if not for honor or family….then for her – for April.


	2. Michelangelo

A/N: Huge thanks to Mikell for the beta!! You may all be noticing by this point that this is kind of centered around the first movie. Welcome into the mind of Michelangelo!! Tread carefully.

Disclaimer: I do not own anything of TMNT and make no money from the writing of this fic. I also do not own Jenna Jameson! Lol…you'll see why this is brought up in a bit.

Classy

Can we keep her. Man, years later…it just…I seriously can't believe actually said that. I looked down at April O'Neal, laying there on our couch and I actually said in all my sixteen year old, naïve glory – 'can we keep her?' Like she was a stray dog or cat. Boy, am I glad she wasn't awake to hear that one.

She wasn't some poor, abandoned animal Raph picked up and brought home one night. Of course, I didn't know anything about her at first. Then she woke up. She woke up, she freaked out (which…to be honest, I wasn't that surprised about. I mean…we're four mutant turtles. Who wouldn't freak out?) and then she sat and she listened to what Master Splinter had to say, hanging on his every word like it was his last. She was…classy. Yeah. That's the word. Classy. That woman composed herself and sucked up any fear she might have been feeling. I have no idea what she did with it, but for as long as I've known her the only time I ever saw it again was when Splinter was taken and Raph was all comatose-ish.

There was one night. If I can remember it right, it was about three nights into our stay at the old farm house. And I only saw it for a second. I let my emotions stop blinding me long enough to catch a glimpse of that fear again. She was sitting at the huge oak desk in the back office, her forehead propped kind of…sloppily on her hand – like she was going to keel over at any minute and that hand wasn't really doing much to hold her up. She had her other hand laying flat over a pad of paper. There was a brown colored pencil trapped beneath it and she was just…staring at it. The fear…that fear I hadn't seen since the night we first met her – it was back. Man, it was back with a vengeance.

I remember feeling this icy chill sweep right up my back when I saw it. She wasn't afraid of us. By then she knew us well enough. I'm not entirely sure what it was that she was afraid of. God knows the woman had enough of a reason to be scared. We were up against some serious evil, Splinter was gone, Raph was in some kind of limbo that we didn't know whether or not he was going to survive. We all had our reasons to be afraid. And on top of all of that, she'd watched her home and the last ties she had to her family go up in flames. Yeah…she had a good reason to be afraid.

Then Donny coughed somewhere in the house and she jerked up. The fear retreated like it was never there. She smiled at me and although she looked pretty much dead tired, she still looked classy.

April was my first crush. I'll admit it. What teenager in his right hormone-driven mind wouldn't have a crush on someone like her? She has one of those smiles – all straight, white teeth and there's this little dimple that shows up when she laughs. Yeah…that drove me nuts for the longest time. Then Jenna Jameson came along and…well, if you're a guy, you get it.

But April, man – she's classy. Always has been. Always will be.

The girl does have some pretty poor judgment on men though, if you ask me. Harrison Ford?? Seriously?? That guy ain't got nothin' on me!


	3. Leonardo

A/N: Thank you to Mikell for being my wonderful beta and letting me put my spin on things. You're the best lady! And a huge thanks to those reviewing! Danni, Mel, Kaleia, Wanderer (good to see you back hun!). And now…Leo's turn in the spotlight!

Tenacity

I always thought Raphael was the stubborn one. He was always the one who fought to do things his way, who refused to "fall in line" as he likes to put it when he's in one of his moods. His stubborn streak is nothing compared to April O'Neil's.

I wouldn't call what April has a wicked stubborn streak though. I'd call it…tenacity. She doesn't know how to give up; she doesn't know how to not give with everything she has in her. You give that woman one iota of information that she needs to pull something off…she'll run at least fifty miles with it before she ever slows down.

It's that tenacity that has saved my family countless times, that tenacity that has given us hope for something more than a life of seclusion from the outside world. It was that tenacity that saved me.

During my training, when I moved to South America to be away from my family and focus on how to be a better leader…there was a part of myself that I lost out there. I can pinpoint the moment that it happened too. It was when the raids on the local villages started. There were so many people struggling to clasp what little they were left with and rebuild their homes, their lives. They had no one to defend them – no one to fight for them when they couldn't fight for themselves. I got so caught up in being that person, being the "Ghost of the Jungle" that I forgot to write home. It was one week…one letter. But the lack of response from my brothers…from my father…it was hard not to think that I was being forgotten. That's when I lost me. Then she showed up, falling straight through the trees and into the heart of the jungle, into _my_ jungle.

The forests of South America wouldn't be considered a five star resort destination. A majority of people who haven't been raised to deal with the harsh reality don't last long. The sweltering heat, the risk of malaria, storms so angry you would swear that someone was seeking vengeance against the country's inhabitants, the dangers slithering through the branches, hissing soft promises of death if provoked – if the jungle doesn't drive you off or drive you mad, if you can't adapt…you die. It's that simple.

April though…she had the tenacity to face it all because she had the one sliver of information she needed to go slicing her way through the thick foliage like some brazen, avenging deity. She's a special kind of stubborn. And it's part of the reason I love her. I didn't realize just how much until she came crashing through that last branch, until she was in my arms and her familiar scent curled around me. I just…I couldn't help it. She came for me…she found me. Where my family had given up, when I was lost…she came for me.

I've wanted to tell myself so many times that I came back because it was time, that I came back because my family needed me. It's not true though. To some extent it is but…but it was because I couldn't get her scent or those eyes to stop haunting me. Every night I would go to sleep…and she would be there. Even in my dreams she was determined.

I know there's no chance for anything besides friendship with April. She can be my friend, she can be my family. But Casey is her life. It seems fitting on some level that she would find a place in the world beside someone who she can cling to with that same fierce tenacity, someone she won't give up on. Maybe that's morbid. I don't know.

I know that I love her though. It's my burden to carry and I do so strongly, fiercely…with a tenacity that I'm sure matches her own. It's the only thing I know how to do when it comes to April.


	4. Donatello

A/N: Thanks to everyone for hanging with me on these! They're kind of out of the realm of what I like to consider normal for me but I guess I'm kind of having fun with them. Don and Leo both turned out a little more angsty than I thought they would but I guess that's what happens when you let characters work through you instead of trying to bend them to your will. Silly turtles, running rampant with my ideas.

Thanks to Mikell for not only faithfully reviewing but also beta'ing all of these for me. Dani, Polaris, Mel, Kaleia and moaboa – thank you all for reviewing. You guys are such sweeties! Big hugs to all of you! And now…Donny's turn!

Disclaimer: I own nothing of TMNT and make no money from the writing of this fic.

Vibrant

During the darkest times, a light must be provided – something to help you see your way out, something to cling to that keeps you sane, something that gives you hope. Something…vibrant. That's April O'Neil. She is that vibrant light existing in the obscure shadows – warm, comforting, pulsating with the hope and promise of something better. I never took that for granted, especially through the times that I needed it the most.

When Splinter…

I'm sorry, this is hard for me. Sometimes I wonder if my brothers handled the loss of Splinter to the Shredder as badly as I did. It's been such a long time since that happened and I still…I still wake up from nightmares and find myself shuffling through the Lair in the early morning hours, making my way to Splinter's room and checking on him to make sure he's still there. I'm not trying to quantify my pain or make it sound like I suffered the loss of our Sensei…our father, worse than any of my brothers did. We all struggled. I just…I wonder if they struggled the same way I did. The same way I still do.

It was because of April and her vibrancy that I didn't fall apart. She was my light at the end of that dark tunnel of depression.

There was this one afternoon - the afternoon she took us down to her antique shop and showed us around. I knew why she was doing it. She wanted to distract us from a bad situation. There was so much tension filling her apartment that at times I swear I could actually see it. Splinter was gone, Leo and Raph had just gotten in a fight and Raph had left, and none of us wanted to be the one to tell April what had happened. We were going through a crisis and couldn't even behave like a family. Leo and Raph fighting…me and Mikey joking about it and retreating to the kitchen like cowards instead of trying to talk them down. Yeah…none of us wanted to be the one saying anything to April and the tour of the antique store was a welcome escape from having to do just that.

There was this moment where I was standing at one of the many counters across from April looking at the massive collection of old, dusty books. They had that smell to them – that old, musty book smell that made you think of the far catacombs of the New York library where the history of the world lined the shelves. There was one book in particular – April told me it was the diary of a man named Jacques Trevelyan. He was a French Explorer whose travels took him to Cairo where he fell in love with a woman named Amisi. She was married to a Pharaoh but that didn't stop Jacques from loving her.

I remember April's eyes as she retold the story, how vibrant they were even in the gloom of the dusty antique shop. She toyed with the string of pearls Jaquese had given his love before she was taken from him, murdered by the Pharoah's Vizier who had also loved Amisi and had killed her in a jealous rage. Her voice lifted and fell, caressed the words of the story she told it, painting the picture of how the book had been found by her uncle. She gave the story light and brought it to life. It amazed me how she could add her personal brush stroke of vibrancy to a story riddled with tragedy.

It was that vivaciousness that I clung to that gave me hope and promised me something better if I could just hold it together. In the moments of weakness that followed, all I had to do was look at April, look at the glow she carried with her constantly. She warmed my heart. She gave me hope for something better and still does to this day. That's who April is to me…who she always will be. A vibrant hope that lights my days and reminds me to keep the faith even in the darkest of hours.


End file.
